Arizona CPS staffing turmoil is dire

Turnover rampant as foster cases rise

A record number of child-abuse and neglect cases coupled with high staff turnover are undermining promises to improve Arizona's child-welfare agency and provide better care for the state's most vulnerable kids.

After more than a year of efforts to reform the state's Child Protective Services, and despite a governor's task force set up to help find solutions, the overwhelmed agency is falling further behind in attempts to recruit enough caseworkers and significantly reduce the backlog of thousands of cases.

CPS is nearly 500 workers short of meeting state and national caseload standards, according to the most recently published state data, in large part due to an unceasing increase in reports of child abuse and neglect.

The staff turnover rate at the agency has reached 31 percent, according to a biannual state report released last month, meaning nearly one in three front-line workers has quit his or her job this year.

And the latest monthly CPS report shows the number of children in foster care continues to rise, hitting a record 13,497 in July. That's a 22 percent increase over the same time last year.

Officials with the state Department of Economic Security, which oversees CPS, said new recruitment staff and strategies, coupled with other internal improvements such as a streamlined investigations process, should help attract and retain more qualified caseworkers and eventually lighten caseloads.

But they acknowledged that the ongoing deluge of new cases -- averaging more than 100 a day -- is a struggle to manage. Caseloads that can be as high as twice the state and national standard led dozens of workers to leave CPS in the first six months of 2012.

"There's no way to argue the numbers," said Stacy Reinstein, deputy child-welfare program administrator. "The work that's coming in is increasing."

Gov. Jan Brewer created a task force on child safety last October in the wake of several child deaths, and DES Director Clarence Carter pledged to reform the child-welfare agency.

CPS continues to try to solve its staffing crisis and hired 215 new caseworkers through June, but 167 left during that same period. There are additional caseworkers in training who are not yet qualified to handle cases. An additional 27 positions are vacant.

That leaves Arizona more than 200 short of its 970 budgeted positions and 468 caseworkers short of what it would take to meet caseload standards, according to CPS data.

CPS has never met its own state standards, which are patterned after national standards based on monthly averages of 10 new investigations per worker, 19 families for "in-home" workers and 16 children for workers monitoring kids in foster care.

When field investigators look into hotline reports of child maltreatment, depending on the severity, they have between two hours and seven days to visit the family and determine whether the child is safe. Under state law, they have 45 days to complete the investigation, but the average investigation takes about six months, according to CPS data.

Because child-welfare work is difficult and draining, state agencies typically expect turnover rates that average 20 to 22 percent, said Nancy Dickinson, director of the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute at the University of Maryland's School of Social Work.

Arizona's turnover is concerning, Dickinson said, and the consequences could be dire as families deal with a parade of new caseworkers.

"It's kind of like a snowball effect," she said. "Once turnover rates start increasing, workers don't stay around because their caseloads go up."

A California study showed that high turnover rates, considered 30 percent and above, led to higher rates of families coming back into the child-welfare system with new reports, as well as lengthier stays in foster care for children.

"It really changes the way families are treated," Dickinson said of caseworker turnover.

Another study in Wisconsin showed children who kept the same caseworker had a 75 percent chance of finding a permanent home, but their chances dropped to 17 percent when they had two or more workers.

Children and their families inevitably fall through the cracks when workers juggle too many cases. That can lead to tragedies, such as the death or serious injury of a child.

Current and former Arizona CPS workers say caseloads are unmanageable, and state data show that for nearly a year, workers have been unable to investigate 100 percent of abuse and neglect reports or to make monthly visits to foster children as required by state law.

And that's while some caseworkers earned overtime that amounted to almost half of their salaries during the past fiscal year. State Department of Administration records show workers and supervisors put in thousands of hours of overtime to try to keep up.

The state is vetting 350 to 500 resumes a month for CPS openings, said Edward Richards, who was hired in June to the newly created position of staff-recruitment manager.

Richards, who said the recruiting and hiring process had been disorganized, hired a second recruiter and two temporary workers to speed application processing.

To hire the right applicants, CPS will add a virtual job tryout so people have a better idea what they're getting into and administrators can tell if they have the right skills for the job.

A new, higher-paid fourth-tier CPS position for the most seasoned caseworkers, approved and funded by lawmakers last session to attract and retain top employees, will be added in October.

Reinstein said stepped-up recruiting and a raft of internal changes, including reduced paperwork, will eventually ease a stubborn backlog still hovering around 10,000 cases. More mentoring and shadowing for new caseworkers and additional training for supervisors also should help retain employees, she said.

Community support is also key, she said, both for CPS case managers and the struggling families in their midst.

"I believe this is the most noble job in government. This job helps kids. In their work, they protect children. They care for them. They help to find them a safe place to grow up," Reinstein said.

"It's important that we have the community at large to help us tackle some of these challenges."